Women Left Behind by Bangladeshi Migrant Workers Find Freedom, Safety Threatened by Saudi Arabia

The wives and daughters left behind by Bangladeshi migrant workers find their freedom and safety threatened by Saudi Arabia, the country that pays their bills

“Pray,” says 15-year-old Mirza Sauda when asked what she enjoys doing in her free time. Her mother smiles at her. In a cramped, blue-walled room, Mirza’s mother, Shaheen, is raising three children with the help of her own mother, her aunt, cousin and sister. Her cousin, Shopna, raised four children the same way, and she now has three granddaughters. Both of their husbands work in Saudi Arabia.

The women shake with laughter, teasing one another and adjusting their hijabs. Like an increasing number of women in Bangladesh, the Sauda women run households, renovate homes, raise children and run a tight budget—all in the absence of husbands and fathers. Physical male presence has all but vanished from their homes. And maintaining this life in their country is increasingly dangerous.

Sexual violence against women and children nearly doubled from May 2024 to May 2025, with reports of break-ins and gang rapes. At the same time, Jamaat-e-Islami, a political party advocating for a nation governed by Islamic law, has returned to the national stage. According to exiled author Taslima Nasreen, these Islamic fundamentalists want women “banned” by imposing Sharia law and are “against women’s equal rights, against humanity.” Though many hoped the student-led revolution of August 2024 would bring secular justice, the interim government includes those who oppose passing laws to protect women, and women’s public safety has reportedly worsened.

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Saudi Arabia’s demand for cheap labor reshaped Mirza’s household. And its trade, employment and aid policy could reconfigure Bangladesh’s religious and political future.

From April to June 2024, more than 43 percent of Bangladeshi migrant workers went to Saudi Arabia to work as employees and semiskilled workers, sending back 11 percent of the nation’s total remittances, according to a recent study. For the nearly 20 percent of Bangladeshis living in poverty, Saudi Arabia funds madrassas (Islamic religious schools) that offer food, shelter and education while preaching Wahhabi doctrine—influencing young men and altering the cultural landscape of Bangladesh. As historian Mohammad Zahidur Rahman explains, Islam started here in the eighth century but “we got Sufi Islam, not Saudi Arabian Islam.” Sufism emphasizes introspection and relation to Allah through poetry, music, dance and mysticism. Wahhabism, which originated in the 18th century in what is now Saudi Arabia, rejects these expressions as blasphemous, advocating for a literalist interpretation of the Quran along with severe punishments for moral offenses.

Wahhabi ideology is at the core of Saudi Arabia’s 2022 Personal Status Law, which restricts female movement and expression. Many feminists warn these interpretations of Islamic texts are already spreading in Bangladesh. While money is funneled to madrassas, prayer space for women is still nonexistent in most Bangladeshi mosques. Despite their increased religiosity, women continue to be restricted from religious (and secular) expression, even though these rights are officially protected in the constitution.

Still, according to Shaheen, “Saudi Arabia is precious.” The nation that took her husband and exported ideas now tightening around their daughter pays the bills and holds the holiest site in Islam. The lives of this family reveal how Saudi Arabia’s influence extends far beyond oil—shaping labor, faith and politics in ways that increasingly threaten freedom and safety for the women left behind.